


Recall Error

by Pteropoda (SilentP)



Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Attempted Brainwashing, Friendship, Gen, Hacking, Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 07:30:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1736279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilentP/pseuds/Pteropoda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not all injuries are visible to the naked eye, especially when one has been fighting with Soundwave. Or, Hound has been damaged and Trailbreaker is getting concerned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recall Error

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this was a story meant to explore a little of the nature of Hound's holograms. Since Cybertronians have literally photographic memories, I figured it would make sense that Hound would take advantage of that when creating illusions. It turned into a little exploration of hacking and what that is for Cybertronians (really violating), but it mostly became Trailbreaker worrying a lot.

The sound of jet engines screaming overhead sent Trailbreaker scrambling for cover. He only just made it to the treeline before the Decepticons were on him. The grove was not the sturdiest protection, but although Trailbreaker heard branches cracking off and falling to the ground, none of the trees toppled and his plating remained untouched. It would be safer to use his force field, but that would take a lot of energy that he wasn’t yet willing to waste. As soon as the shots passed him by, Trailbreaker peered through the treetops. The three jets (Dirge, Ramjet and Thrust by the paint jobs) didn’t circle around to strafe him again, but looped back in the direction of the main battle.

Trailbreaker took note of it as he stepped out from the trees. Part of him felt guilty to leave his friends three more enemies to fight, but the truth was that he couldn’t afford the time to engage them right now, especially not with three of them and only one of him. Still, he wondered why the Coneheads hadn’t stuck around. Did his force fields simply make him too difficult a target? Or was there nothing in this direction worth investigating?

That was the most likely option, though it wasn’t the one that Trailbreaker hoped for. The Autobots were only here because of suspicions of a Decepticon project in the area, but their scouts had found nothing but an attack force. If it hadn’t been for one of their scouts going missing, they would have taken the information for a ruse.

Hound was still unaccounted for, and Prowl had sent his junior tactician to investigate. Trailbreaker knew that Prowl could have sent one of the scouts, but it had filled his spark with pride to know that Prowl trusted him not to let his worries overtake his processor.

He moved through the woodlands slowly, sensors on high. The woods were terrible for stealth, particularly for a mech of his size, but if there were any Decepticons moving around in here, he would be able to hear them as well. Still, the farther out he went, the less certain he was of finding anything. He could detect nothing beyond the normal creatures of the forest, and the sounds that they made, beyond the ring of silence created by his own movements.

Disappointed, he opened his comm to tell Prowl that he’d made a mistake, that whatever had kept Hound from returning to the main force, it wasn’t Decepticon activity. He was met with nothing but static. He tried again, to the same result. It wasn’t impossible that Prowl had been taken down, so Trailbreaker tried for Ironhide. Still nothing.

When he couldn’t raise the Ark either, Trailbreaker knew he’d found something. A jammed signal meant Soundwave, and _that_ meant something that required the oversight of the Decepticon TiC. Prowl would go on alert when Trailbreaker didn’t comm back in to report, but until then Trailbreaker needed to investigate. This time, he held his blaster at the ready as he started forward. He was no scout, but he knew better than to charge helm first into an unknown situation.

It was slow going, trying to move as quietly as possible through the trees, but only a few minutes later, heard the abrupt clang of metal on metal, and a shout. It sounded like Hound’s voice, and Trailbreaker nearly started running toward it. He restrained himself, but only just. Using the sounds of the struggle as cover, he picked up his pace.

It led him to a break in the trees. The Decepticons had obviously been busy. They had created a clearing, still dotted with fallen trees and upturned earth. On the far side, piles of iron girders and energon cubes awaited use, but what captured Trailbreaker’s attention was the two mechs in the center of the clearing.

Soundwave had Hound pressed face down in the dirt, with one arm pinned. The green scout was struggling, but he was in a bad position for it. Soundwave was entirely focused on subduing the scout, and Trailbreaker was still hidden among the trees, with a perfect line of sight. He held up his gun, lined up the shot, and fired.

The blast hit Soundwave in the shoulder hard enough to knock him back. Hound, seizing the opportunity, rolled away, putting distance between himself and the Decepticon third in command. Trailbreaker advanced, firing again, but Soundwave was already backing away.

“Alert. Alert. Autobot attack. Frenzy, Rumble: eject.” Soundwave droned, releasing the two symbiotes from his chest. The two cassettes advanced cautiously, and Trailbreaker knew further backup for the Decepticons would not be long in arriving. He stepped forward, gun at the ready. Hound stumbled to his pedes, cradling his left arm, which was limp and leaking energon.

“Glad to see you’re still online,” Trailbreaker said, sparing a grin for his friend even as he activated his force field in a tight bubble around them.

Hound chuckled weakly, but did not take his optics off the circling casseticons. “Let’s keep it that way until the cavalry arrives.”

_____

In the end, the Autobot forces arrived at the same time as the Decepticons. With the Cons’ secret project uncovered, Megatron gave into the inevitable and called a retreat. In the aftermath of the battle, there was plenty of discussion among the officers of where the Decepticons had stolen the building materials from, but Trailbreaker didn’t stick around long enough for that. He was tasked with escorting any injured mechs back to the Ark for repairs. In this case, it meant keeping an optic on Hound, who was still leaking, and Gears, who was weaving dangerously as he drove and complaining about it all the while. Gears complained about how slow the trip back to the Ark was, too, but he’d hate driving into a ditch even more, so Trailbreaker considered it a trade-off.

When they get to the entrance, Ratchet was already waiting, and he hauled Gears inside muttering something about gyros and processor damage. Wheeljack and Hoist were still at the battlefield, which left Sparkplug to look overHound’s arm. Trailbreaker stuck around, because he didn’t have anything better to do, and Sparkplug might need the mech-sized pair of servos.

“The ball of the joint slipped out of its socket and punched a hole in an energon line on its way out. We’ll get everything back where it’s supposed to be, patch that energon line, and you should be good to go,” the human mechanic said from his perched platform. “I’ll get some oil on the joint, then I’ll need you to force it back into place.”

Sparkplug gave instructions and Trailbreaker obeyed, holding the arm at a certain angle then _pushing_ until it slotted back into place with a little grinding sound. Hound, to his credit, barely made a sound, though Trailbreaker could see his optics flickering from the pain. One that was done, the human mechanic worked briskly and efficiently, stress-testing plating and cables, then patching the torn line.

“There, good as new.” Sparkplug said finally, slapping a hand against Hound’s chassis. Trailbreaker held out a hand to lift Sparkplug down to the floor, and then the human waved them out of the repair bay.

Hound nearly stumbled over his own pedes before catching himself, but he waved off Trailbreaker’s support. “Reserves are low, that’s all. Once I’ve grabbed a cube I’ll be fine.”

Energon loss was not kind to a mech’s systems, and Hound had been steadily losing fuel for a while now. “As long as I don’t have to carry you,” Trailbreaker said, gently herding Hound toward the rec room. He hadn’t been able to prevent the injury, but he could at least make sure Hound recovered from it quickly.

“I’m sorry about this,” he told Hound. “If I’d gotten there sooner…”

Hound shook his head. “You got there sooner than I was expecting in the first place. Soundwave was practically waiting for me. Even Prowl didn’t know about it, how could you have? I know you’d like to blame yourself for this one, ‘Breaker, but it’s not going to work.”

“Well, not when you say it so sensibly,” Trailbreaker said. It didn’t make him any less worried, but it did ease the twinge of guilt in his spark.

_____

The rec room, with all its buzz and chatter, was one of Trailbreaker’s favorite places to be when he was aboard the Ark. He spent a good portion of his free time there, and even some of his on-duty hours. He’d gotten some good-natured ribbing from the other Autobots about shirking, but he was a tactician- maybe he couldn’t track the trajectory of eight hundred moving objects the way Prowl’s battle computer could, but he could handle multi-thread processing well enough to track a conversation and do his work at the same time.

It was why he was drafting his post-battle analysis for Prowl even as he, Blaster, and Smokescreen chatted about the Ark’s latest race for charity. “Now I don’t mind doin’ it in the first place,” Blaster was saying, “but it’s about time we did something that isn’t just for the race cars, ya dig? Me ‘n Jazz can throw a sizzlin’ dance party between the two of us.”

“The science teams do plenty of things with the humans,” Trailbreaker pointed out. “I wouldn’t mind getting a chance to help out myself, though. The only time Prime sends me out to work with humans is when they need my force field.” He tapped at the map on his datapad, noting down the research facility that had been near the battlefield as a potential Decepticon target.

“I hear you,” Smokescreen said, tapping at the sides of his energon cube. “Maybe I’ll propose something to Prime. A card game with one mech raising funds for each charity might work. We could do that human bluffing one. What do they call it, poker?”

In his peripheral, Trailbreaker caught Jazz pulling up a seat at the table and sliding into the conversation. “Good luck with that, mech. You know how Prime is about the humans’ goodwill.”

“He didn’t mind on Monacus,” Smokescreen said, then shrugged. “But that wasn’t gambling human’s money. Well, it’s worth a shot.”

“Anything’s worth a shot, as long as it’s not another car wash,” said Blaster.

“Don’t tell me you’re jealous that you aren’t getting a rub-down,” Jazz said with a chuckle, but he sounded distracted. Trailbreaker glanced up from to see that Jazz’s focus was directed away from the table. “Mech, are you going to take your ration or stare at it until it dries up?”

Trailbreaker followed Jazz’s line of sight, frowning. “Hound?” The green mech was standing in front of the energon dispenser, staring at it as though he’d never seen it before. Trailbreaker started to get up out of his chair, but Hound shook himself and finally took the ration, turning toward their table.

“What was that, Jazz?” Hound asked as he took a seat.

“What was _that?”_ Blaster retorted, leaning forward. “You were in another solar system, mech.”

“Just thinking,” Hound responded, setting aside his cube. “So what were you saying about a dance party?”

And just like that, Hound was himself again, as though the moment of blank staring had never happened. It could have been a momentary glitch- it happened to the best of them- but Trailbreaker felt a seed of worry. And from the way Jazz was watching Hound, he got the feeling he wasn’t the only one. He forced himself to focus on his work. The facility was apparently researching 3D imaging- if he could only get some specifics on their current project, he might find out what the Decepticons would want with the place.

_____

His role within the tactical division meant that Trailbreaker was not often added to the patrol roster, but it made the few occasions when he was all the more enjoyable. All the better that his partner this time was Hound, because Hound was one of the few who not only tolerated but shared his interest in Earth’s wild places.

Anticipation had him rising early, and he didn’t linger long in the rec room before heading for the entrance to the Ark. The sun was just barely over the horizon, and the night’s dew was lifting in a slow haze over the trees to the side of the Ark. It would be a beautiful day for patrol, much preferable to spending his shift inside the Ark. After finishing his analysis for Prowl, he was glad for the opportunity to get away from datapads for a while.

Hound arrived only a few minutes later, and waved in greeting. “You’re all ready to set out, huh?” he asked with his usual good-natured cheer.

“Just as soon as Red Alert gives us the go-ahead,” Trailbreaker agreed. And just as though Trailbreaker’s words had summoned him (a very likely possibility, considering Red) they were pinged an okay. Trailbreaker transformed quickly, and prepared to set off, only to realize a moment later that there was no sound of a second engine.

“Something up, Hound?” The mech was still standing in the entrance, and his optics were focused on the trees to the right, but he glanced up at the sound of Trailbreaker revving his engine.

“Coming,” he said, and stepped forward, already transforming. Trailbreaker felt another little flash of disquiet, but… well, he’d just been staring at the image the mist over the trees made himself. Hound taking a moment to appreciate that didn’t mean anything was wrong.

The rest of the patrol went as well as it always did, with the two of them sharing their observations of the flora and fauna of Earth. Trailbreaker would have completely forgotten the odd little moment from that morning, if Hound hadn’t almost driven straight into his heels once they reached the entrance of the Ark, then only switched out of alt mode when Red Alert started complaining about driving in the halls.

_____

Trailbreaker checked his chronometer for the fifth time in as many minutes, then glanced toward the door of the rec room, just as he’d done the other five times. Still there was no hint of green plating anywhere.

He didn’t bother to hide his frown. Hound was by no means the stickler for timeliness certain other members of the Ark could be, but he was usually reasonably prompt, and sent a message ahead if he was going to be late. It was already thirty minutes after their agreed meeting time and still there had not even been a ping.

There could be a reasonable explanation, Trailbreaker told himself. There was no need to worry needlessly. Still, he could not relax as he sent a comm. _:Trailbreaker to Hound.:_

 _:Hound here. What’s up?:_ Trailbreaker nearly slumped in relief at the prompt answer.

 _:If something’s come up, we can meet another time, you know,:_ he said, doing his best to keep the worry out of his tone.

 _:Meet? Oh-:_ Hound’s voice flooded with chagrin. _:Primus, that was right now, wasn’t it? I can’t believe I forgot! Sorry, Trailbreaker. I don’t know how I didn’t manage to set an alert. I’ll be there in just a second.:_

The relief came even stronger. _:It happens to the best of us. It’s no problem.:_

 _:Well, it won’t happen again if I can help it.:_ Hound sounded so determined that when he appeared at the rec room door moments later, fans buzzing from his dash through the Ark, Trailbreaker couldn’t help but smile.

_____

It happened again. And again. And again.

This time, after waiting for an entire hour, Trailbreaker couldn’t bring himself to send the comm. He slumped over his cube of energon, swirling it idly back and forth. Primus, but he wished it was high grade right now. “Maybe he’s avoiding me.”

“You’re waiting on Hound, ain’tcha? It’s not just you, mech.”

Trailbreaker started, nearly knocking over his cube in surprise. “Jazz!” The smaller mech slid into a seat across from him. As ever, his visor made his expressions hard to read, but Trailbreaker thought he could read concern in the twist of the mech’s lip-plates. Then his processor caught up with Jazz’s words. “What do you mean?”

“I mean Prowl just wrote him up for being late three shifts in a row.” Jazz shook his head. “I dunno what’s gotten into that mech recently. Seems he can’t keep track of anything, anymore.”

Trailbreaker slumped. He didn’t want to say it was true, but he couldn’t disagree. “It’s come up out of nowhere. I’ve known Hound for millennia, but I’ve never seen him act like this.” He took a moody little sip of his energon. “I was going crazy trying to think what I could have done to get him mad, but if he’s even missing shifts… That’s not like Hound.”

Jazz was drumming his servos against the table in a restless rhythm. “You remember when this started, don’t you?”

“Yeah, after that last battle.” Trailbreaker paused, expecting Jazz to interject, but the officer didn’t interrupt him. “But Sparkplug said he was fine. The only problem was his arm, and a couple of scrapes from Soundwave.” Jazz’s helm tilted ever so slightly.

“Usually true with Soundwave. He ain’t a bad fighter, but that’s never been his forte, yeah?”

“Well, no. Soundwave’s their intelligence officer…” Trailbreaker felt his vocalizer short out as Jazz’s implication hit home, and it took him several tries to reboot it. “You don’t think-!”

The grim twist to Jazz’s mouth told him everything.

“But they were just fighting. I didn’t see any sort of hardline connection.” Trailbreaker’s tanks roiled. “But I wasn’t looking for one. You think that Soundwave _hacked_ him?”

“I think that Soundwave did something to him.” Jazz’s fingers jumped to double time. “But I don’t know what. Hound was missing for a while. Maybe long enough to be reprogrammed entirely. Or maybe Soundwave didn’t do anything before you showed up.”

“Primus.” Trailbreaker grimaced. Hacked. Sure, he’d noticed Hound’s strange behavior, but he hadn’t connected it to Soundwave’s attack. If it was true, then Trailbreaker really had arrived too late to prevent it. “You didn’t need to talk to me to figure that out. He needs to go to Ratchet.” Trailbreaker was halfway to his pedes. “Or did you take him there already?”

Jazz stopped him with a servo on his arm. Trailbreaker, unhappy, nevertheless paused at the unspoken order. “It’s not so simple. He’s a threat to the entire Ark right now, whether he wants to be or not. Just hauling him down to medbay might be dangerous for us and for him.”

The pressure of Jazz’s hand on his plating had not been removed. Trailbreaker slowly allowed it to guide him back into his seat. “So now what?”

“Now,” Jazz said, leaning forward, “I’mma need your help.”

_____

Jazz had come up with the plan. It was a good thing, Trailbreaker reflected. He was a tactician, but his strategies were focused around defense, and much more straightforward. Subterfuge wasn’t in his coding. If he weren’t so worried about Hound, Trailbreaker might have backed out. Instead, he pushed the unease aside by reminding himself that it was his fault that Hound was like this in the first place, and he owed it to the mech to be sure he got fixed properly.

He and Jazz had relocated to the medbay, where Ratchet had been waiting with a private room at the ready. All three of them stood at the ready. At Jazz’s nod, Trailbreaker opened his comm.

_:Trailbreaker to Hound. You got a minute?:_

Hound responded only a moment later. _:Hound here.:_ There was no hint in Hound’s tone that he even remembered standing Trailbreaker up earlier that day. _:Sure do. What can I do for you?:_

 _:Think you could come down to the medbay?:_ To the side, Jazz was giving him a thumbs-up, and Trailbreaker continued with the lie. _:Ratchet says there’s some kind of animal in here. I think it’s a lizard, and I could use the help catching it.:_

 _:Force fields not enough?:_ Hound teased gently. If he weren’t so worried, Trailbreaker might have managed a chuckle, but Hound continued anyway, oblivious to Trailbreaker’s worries. _:I’ll be right there.:_

“He’s coming,” Trailbreaker told the other two.

“All right.” Jazz sprang into action. “Ratchet, you keep back. Trailbreaker, stand by the door, be ready to catch him. I’m going to knock him out, but it won’t last long.”

For a moment, Trailbreaker thought that Ratchet would protest, but although he grumbled quietly, he moved back, putting plenty of space between him and the door. Trailbreaker moved to the spot Jazz pointed him to, and waited.

All too soon, he heard the clank of pedes in the hallway. He didn’t even have the time to flinch as the door opened. Jazz moved forward too fast for Trailbreaker to track and Hound dropped, optics dark. Trailbreaker grabbed him before he could hit the floor.

“Get him up on the berth,” Ratchet ordered, leading the way into the private room. “Jazz, you’d better hope that little toy of yours didn’t do any damage, or so help me…”

Jazz was unusually solemn as he assisted Trailbreaker in levering Hound’s frame up onto the berth. “Take it out on my plating after we’ve done this.” Then, catching Trailbreaker’s worried frown, Jazz explained. “I shocked his processor with a pulse of current. He’ll have a processor ache when he wakes up, but nothing more.”

“I’m still putting him in medical stasis,” Ratchet said with a frown. “We don’t need him coming online in the middle of this.” With Hound on the berth, the CMO was busy setting up equipment, while Jazz stood by, doing something to one of the medical screens. Ratchet, who was poking at Hound’s neck, cursed. “Cervical ports are slagged. Something damaged them, and all signs point to an abrupt disconnection.” He cursed again as he replaced the covers. “I’m going to have to use the thoracic ports instead.”

Trailbreaker’s spark pulsed with dismay. Damaged ports meant that whatever was wrong with Hound, it had come from hacking. He had no doubt that the damage had been caused when he took his shot at Soundwave, and while he did not regret driving the Decepticon away, he wondered just how much damage had been done while he was still making his slow way to that clearing.

“Should I go?” he asked, already glancing toward the door.

Jazz, apparently satisfied with whatever tampering he had been doing, stepped back and started leading Trailbreaker away. “C’mon, let’s let the docbot work,” he said. “He’ll call us if he needs us.”

_____

Ratchet spent hours working. Trailbreaker, concerned, had asked Jazz, but Jazz reassured him that it was standard procedure in the case of damaged code.

“Even if he finds the problem first thing, he still needs to look over everything else to make sure there are no other surprises lurking,” he said, “Especially since this is Soundwave we’re dealing with.” Trailbreaker was surprised but grateful when Jazz not only didn’t suggest that he leave, but stuck around himself. Now and then Trailbreaker caught the buzz of comm chatter or a distracted look on Jazz’s faceplates, but he didn’t blame the lieutenant for working while he waited. It might have been nice to have a distraction of his own, but Trailbreaker was left with nothing to do but stare at the floor and worry.

When Ratchet finally stepped out of the room, Trailbreaker glanced up, clenching his hands to hide his nerves. Ratchet was good at what he did. He wouldn’t have stopped unless everything was the way it should be.

“He’ll be fine,” Ratchet said. Trailbreaker couldn’t hide the way he slumped in relief, but the medic didn’t pay him any mind. Instead, he walked over to a cabinet, pulled out a cube of energon, and downed half of it before he continued. “His personality and loyalty coding was all unaltered, and all the firewalls protecting sensitive information were intact.”

This time, it was Jazz who reacted, leaning forward. “That’s good, but you’re not telling me there was no damage,” he said.

Ratchet shook his head. “No. It looks like Soundwave was interested in the holoemitter.” Apparently, he anticipated the confusion from his audience. “There’s a reason Hound creates such good holograms so quickly. He uses images directly from his memory core. If Soundwave was trying to get the coding that controls the holographic images, an interruption could have caused him to inadvertently damage Hound’s ability to access his memories.” Ratchet set aside his cube and cycled his vents. “Sparkplug’s a good mechanic, but he doesn’t know processors. I take it no one’s seen Hound trying to use his holograms recently.”

Trailbreaker shook his head. Hound only occasionally used his illusions in the Ark, and hadn’t done anything of the sort this week. “The Decepticons… I guess it makes sense.” Trailbreaker said weakly. “We didn’t know what they were trying to build with the raw materials they had, but there was a human science center nearby that was trying to create holograms. If the Decepticons were trying to build a holoemitter, then it would make sense for Soundwave to try and take Hound’s when he had the chance.”

Jazz clapped his hands together and rocked to his feet. “Well, in that case, I’m going to update Prime,” he said. For only a moment, he rested a hand on Trailbreaker’s shoulder, before he stepped out of the medbay.

Ratchet just shook his head at Jazz’s retreating back. “That mech,” he grumbled, before finishing up his cube before turning to Trailbreaker. “I’m about to bring Hound out of stasis. He should be fine, but he’ll need a good defrag after this. I assume you can make sure he gets back to his room.”

“Of course,” said Trailbreaker. Ratchet nodded, and disappeared into the room again, leaving Trailbreaker to wait alone in the silence of the medbay.

_____

Hound wasn’t taken off the duty roster. If anything, it was Trailbreaker whose responsibilities lightened. Prowl removed him from his usual tactical duties and instead assigned him to assist with patrols. More specifically, he was sent on a long-distance patrol with Hound. Prowl’s only comment on the change was that he expected a list of suggestions of methods that could be used to monitor potential Decepticon activity in the area.

Trailbreaker knew an officer conspiracy when he saw one, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind. Hound hadn’t quite been himself ever since he left the medbay. It wasn’t much, not enough to draw comment from most of the mechs on the Ark, but Hound was a little quieter, a little more withdrawn. He wasn’t forgetting things any more, but Trailbreaker was concerned for him anyway. He knew how he’d feel if he learned that Soundwave had been poking around inside his brain module.

Maybe Hound suspected something was up when Jazz showed up to see them off on their patrol. If he did, he didn’t say anything about it but waved a cheerful goodbye and set out. For the first few hours, things were almost normal. The two of them set out from the Ark at a steady pace, and it was not long before they were traveling the nearly-empty stretches of highway that composed their route, occasionally running a scan or pointing out some particular feature of the scenery to one another but mostly traveling in companionable silence.

They were across one state line and well on their way to another when Trailbreaker finally said what he was thinking. “How are you doing?”

Hound didn’t even try to pretend he didn’t know what Trailbreaker meant and Trailbreaker was thankful for it. They traveled the next few miles in silence, and Trailbreaker was about to tell Hound never mind, he didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to, when the answer finally came.

“I’m managing,” he said, quiet but steady. “For a hack, it could’ve been a lot worse.” It was surprisingly frank, but then both of them were straightforward mechs. “Not going to be letting anyone at my dataports any time soon, but that won’t be forever.” Hound swerved gently back and forth, an alt-mode shrug. “Wheeljack said that the connection between my holoprojector and my memory core means that the Decepticons won’t be able to create an emitter unless they plan on installing it directly on a mech.” The silence stretched on again, before Hound broke it. “Thanks for sticking around.”

“Well, yeah,” Trailbreaker said, surprised despite himself. “It’s the least I could do.”

“It could have been a lot worse than some broken connections, if you hadn’t shown up when you did. So thanks for looking out for me. You’re a great friend, Trailbreaker.”

It was strange, to hear it said so bluntly, but he knew Hound meant it. “You know I’ve got your back whenever you need me to.”

“My back, huh?” For the first time in days, Hound’s voice was cheerful, full of uncomplicated good humor. “How about my exhaust?” And then, with a roar of his engine, he was swerving around to pass Trailbreaker, taking off down the stretch of highway.

“Oh no you don’t!” Trailbreaker put metal to the pedal, and started chasing with a rev of his own engine. It wouldn’t be the fastest car chase in the world, and they would probably scare off plenty of animals in the area, but that was all right. After all, they had a long road still left to drive.


End file.
